All of a sudden I've got engines popping out of every corner of my property.

Most guys may have an engine or two that's taking up space in their workbay.  I've got five at the moment.  And that's not counting transmissions, bellhousings, t-cases, and all the other crap littering my garage life.

We finally finished the buildup of the 468 cube Olds big block for Project Murderous Overkill.  Mondello Performance breathed heavily on a pair of Edelbrock heads and Comp Cams built an obscenely large solid roller camshaft.We ran it with a few different manifolds and a Zex nitrous kit on Westech Performance Group's dyno and it made some obscene power numbers (well, obscene for an Olds engine). You'll be reading about it in the Oct. and Nov. issues of Jp.

Then there's the Buick 225 I picked up for $50 from a guy in the next town over. It came with the 50lb flywheel and an extra set of heads. I'll rebuild the engine and try my hand at porting the extra heads for a little more oomph. I don't know what I'll put it in, but the L head in my '48 CJ-2A isn't too happy, so maybe it'll wind up in there. Next to that is the Chrysler 300 5.7L hemi with 0-miles. I'd like to swap in some custom forged pistons and then throw 7psi boost at it with a centrifugal supercharger. The resulting 700hp should be welcome in whatever 2WD sand Jeep creation I ultimately build for it.

You haven't met my '68 J2000 Gladiator pickup with a 232 inline six yet, but the engine makes 15psi oil pressure at about 3200rpm, so it's on its way out. I picked up a complete take out HO 4.0L from Scotty's Jeep in Fontana, CA. The 4.0L is out of a '91 XJ and still wears the front accessory group, injection and wiring, and even the computer. You'll have to wait until the project vehicle series begins to read about the install.

Finally, I had conned my buddies at JD Fabrication into storing the old 4.0L out of Jp's Project JR '99 XJ after we swapped in a 4.6L stroker. Well, the stoker is dead (read the story elsewhere in the blogs) and my buddies generosity came to an end, so the 4.0L is back in my possession. The plan is to yank the stroker and get the Cherokee up and running again with the stock engine. Only problem is that's waaaay down on the priority ladder and I'm out of floor space, so the XJ engine will languish in the back of my CJ-2A until I can figure out a way to get the long block up to my Primedia office on the 11th floor.